Grata gave whatever was in the pot a stir and banged the spoon on the side of the cauldron. “I don’t know.” She had been working in the kitchen, trying to prepare a meal, while Camma sat nursing the baby and weeping and saying she was all alone and nobody understood her.
“Then the baby fell asleep,” said Grata, “and I told her to go and get some rest.” She glanced from Ruso to Tilla. “I need a rest too. This house is full of nothing but trouble and crying.”
Tilla reached across to the table and balanced the pot so nothing would tip out of the spout. “He is not hungry,” she said.
“Then what’s he got to cry about?”
Tilla shrugged. “Perhaps he wants his mother.”
Ruso said, “I’ve alerted the guards to look for her.”
Grata snorted. “You are asking Dias for help?”
“I don’t trust him,” said Ruso, “but his men are our best bet. I’ll carry on looking, but if she comes back in the meantime, tell her I’m truly sorry about what happened at the meeting. You both turned up at the wrong moment.”
Tilla looked up from rocking the baby. “Camma heard what you said to the Council?”
“He let the Council think everything was the fault of Asper and Nico,” said Grata. “Nobody spoke the name of Dias, still there throwing his weight about.”
He said, “I can explain.”
“No need,” said Grata. “I know how it happens. They have frightened you like they frightened me. And this is not all your fault.” She scraped a stool across the floor and seated herself on the other side of the fire. “This afternoon I told Camma something I should have said a long time ago,” she said. “But I thought…” Her voice drifted into silence. Then she shook her head. “Anyway, I have been first a fool and then a coward. And now perhaps more of a fool for telling it, but I am weary of all the lies. And I keep thinking about what happened to Bericus.”
Ruso and Tilla exchanged a glance. Tilla said, “What is this thing, sister?”
“There was no message to meet Caratius at his house,” said Grata. “Dias asked me to say it.”
Ruso felt a lurch of disappointment. He had been hoping for something new: some unexpected revelation that would point the way out of this mess. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’d already guessed that.”
“But Camma had not,” said Tilla.
Ruso said, “Does Dias know that you told her?”
Grata lowered her head. “He was here just now,” she said, “pretending he wanted to make sure we were all right after the trouble at the meeting.”
“And did he know you had told her the truth?”
Grata sniffed. “I told him I was sick of him and I never wanted to see him again. And he said I had better keep my mouth shut because I would be in trouble if I didn’t, and I told him it was too late.” She cupped one hand over the bruising. “That was when he hit me.”
“I think she has gone to the cemetery,” said Tilla. “She has gone to lift the curse on Caratius in the place where it was spoken.”
Ruso said, “Dias’s men will have seen her go through the gate. If she’s there, he’ll know where to find her.”
Tilla laid the baby back in his box and pulled the blanket up to his chin. “If he wakes again, try warming the water and putting a little honey in it.”
“What if Dias comes back?”
“Dias will be too busy chasing Camma,” said Tilla.
“Because of me? Because I told her there was no message?”
“Because she might tell everyone who is behind all this,” said Ruso, wishing he had done so himself. “I’ll go after her.”
“We need horses,” put in Tilla, plainly not intending to be left behind. “We can take Grata to the mansio on the way to the stables. She will be safe there.”
“You are a sensible woman with a good heart,” she assured Grata breathlessly as Ruso unlocked the street door to let her into the safety of Suite Three. “Keep this door blocked, because Dias may still have a key. If you have any trouble, run into the garden and shout for Doctor Valens and Serena. I will be back as soon as I can, and when we find Camma, I will tell her to give you extra pay.”
69
Afterward, on bad days, Tilla would blame herself for the delay she had caused by insisting on taking Grata and the baby to safety. On those days, she would blame herself for everything. Sometimes the Medicus would tell her that they were both at fault, and at other times they would agree that Dias had been the cause of it all. The truth was that they would never know. All they could say with certainty was that if they had been a few minutes earlier, it might not have happened.
If only Tilla had demanded a proper horse, instead of the fat little pony that the stable boy had insisted on leading across to the mounting block because he seemed to think a woman would not know how to get on without help. If only she had not distracted him by asking if he had never seen a woman in skirts hitch them up and ride astride before. If only it had not begun to rain in thick cold drops as they trotted through the town toward the south gates, and if only they had not had to shout for the men to come out of the guardhouse and confirm that, yes, they had seen Camma hurrying past less than an hour ago.
If only they had not wasted time riding through the cemetery and calling her name into the woods, with Tilla pushing windswept hair out of her eyes and shivering, wishing she had brought a cloak, while the horses’ hooves churned up the wet grass between the graves. If only there had been a funeral that afternoon, the cemetery slaves might not have smelled of beer as they wandered out of their hut to see what was going on. They might have remembered which way the wild-haired woman had gone after she had left.
If only she had not paused to cut a switch to wake the fat pony because it refused to speed up even when the Medicus tried to lead it with his own horse, and if only he had not slowed so that he could keep her in sight…
If none of these things had happened, then Dias might not have already been on his way back from Caratius’s farm by the time they arrived, galloping headlong toward them on the track through the woods and reining his horse in as he saw the Medicus waving at him. Tilla was too far away to hear what they were saying to each other before Dias yanked the horse’s head around and both men raced back toward the house. Even the fat pony seemed to understand, too late, that she needed to hurry.
Through the rain Tilla could see servants clustered around something at the foot of the house steps. The Medicus slid down off his horse and ran toward them. As they parted to let him through, she could see a splash of bright hair on the ground, golden against the scarlet of blood. The fat pony’s hoofbeats slowed and she heard the thin, terrified screams of the old woman.
The Medicus was bending over Camma, talking to her, but he was asking the same questions again and again. Can you hear me? Camma, can you hear me? He was trying to wipe the blood from the side of her head and shelter her from the rain with a borrowed cloak and organize the servants to bring something to lay her on and get her up to the house.
All the time the old woman was clinging on to the door frame wailing and crying and the maid was trying to reassure her and coax her back inside. Dias was saying, “I couldn’t stop her. I saw it happening and I couldn’t get there in time to stop her.” Caratius was there, kneeling in the mud beside his former wife, his gray hair lank and dark with the wet. When he looked up and roared, “Silence!” to Dias, was that rain on his face, or tears?
According to the maid, Caratius had been up in the top paddock assessing a lame foal when Camma had appeared out of the rain, running toward the house with dripping hair, her skirts gathered in her fists and mud splashed up her legs and a warrior chasing after her on horseback. The maid had opened the door, then rushed to the kitchen to fetch the cook and tell the kitchen boy to find the master. In that brief moment it seemed nobody except Dias had seen the old woman shuffle out onto the porch with a bag clutched in one hand and her walking stick in the other, and lunge with the stick. Camma had fallen back down the steps while the old woman cried out
